by Wil McCarthy
She wished the same were true of her, but in fact she was rough, hurried, impersonal, taking what she needed from him and providing little in return. And the whole experience tasted of ashes anyway, because whoever she was really with, in her heart and mind, neither of them had any illusions that it was Sasha himself.
But she had stopped herself, at least, from crying out the wrong name, and she supposed that was a victory of sorts.
~~~
Impulse control, Malye thought. Oh, how she needed it today! Someone had found an ink stick somewhere and decorated the dayroom wall with an image of Skato, the shitting boy, and her reaction had been spectacular and entirely uncalled-for, frightening everyone into silence. No one would admit to the deed, and small wonder, for even Malye herself didn't know what she'd have done to the perpetrator. Something rash, certainly.
And when Konstant had asked her whether the talks with #Hthw# would resume today, whether Malye would press the issue one way or the other, she had erupted again, coming within a hairsbreadth of striking him. “Handle it yourself,” she'd told him. “You're in charge.” But it had been more an exile than a delegation: get thee from my sight, smartass, and busy yourself however you please.
The refugees, even Sasha, even her own children, had rolled their eyes with unmistakable relief when she'd donned the burgundy uniform and left them to pursue her old job once more. Waves of yellow-white anxiety chasing after her down the hallway, echoing from the walls and the bodies of passing Gateans. Hands clenched into fists—she badly wanted to smash something, anything, but the only things here that might be fragile enough were the Gateans themselves. The Workers, of course, not her own hulking guards.
In her new office, halfway between the refugees' quarters and the interface station, she settled in and ordered the flow of interviewees to resume once more. Talkers ring, today, and Shapers, and a couple of others whose names refused to stick in her mind. No matter.
The first victim was named Chain, and when the Sirian-style door slid closed behind him and he sat down across from her, a palpable wave of hostility passed between them, his disdain and dislike and displeasure written clearly in his features, and evident in every little gesture. She wasn't the only one having a bad morning, all right, but she sincerely hoped he would cooperate nonetheless, because there was a serious danger she'd kill him if he didn't. At least he had the sense to be afraid.
“Do you know why you're here?” she asked, as calmly and evenly as she could, her voice sliding out as if the words had been oiled. It cost nothing to be polite.
“Nominally, to answer questions,” Chain replied.
She cocked her head, stifled a growl. “Nominally? Is there another purpose?”
“Yes.”
“Would you share it with me?”
“Yes.” He looked behind her, at the Drones. “But in confidence, only. Not in the presence of these two, whose interests cross sharply with those of my ring.”
Malye thought for a moment, and then nodded. She sensed no immediate harm from this Worker, and anyway it would hardly be her first time alone with a suspect. She turned to the Drones, huge Olympian figures swathed in black and burgundy, imposing as the minions of Saitan.
“Wait outside for a few minutes, please. I'll come get you when we're finished.”
“We are to protect you,” one of them said in a low, thundering voice.
“And to obey,” Malye said, and turned her back. After a moment's pause, she heard their heavy footfalls, heard the door open and close.
“Will you speak with me now?” she asked Chain.
He looked at her for a moment. “Perhaps. Perhaps I will.”
All at once, Malye was poised on the knife-edge of fury, barely able to contain herself. Breathing deeply, she counted to five, and then said in a warning voice, “Please don't waste my time like this, citizen. I'm sure you understand that time is of the essence in investigations of this sort, and—” she leaned forward, standing, hands on the table, hoping to violate some near-human concept of personal space “—I have more efficient methods than this at my disposal.”
She couldn't read the expression on the Worker's face after that, but she knew wasn't a happy one. She sat, crossed her hands.
“Talkers ring has suffered tremendous reversals,” he said to her in a tight voice. “We are charged with the care and operation of Gate's exocommunication devices. Our job has been to transmit slow light signals to the Waister civilization, and to hunt for any accidental emissions from that region, and to hope one day for deliberate replies. When the approaching fleet was first detected, it was we who hailed them, we who mediated all communications with them. Until four days ago, when this function was subsumed by the trash gatherers of Finders ring, and two days ago, when your own people took up a role.”
“I'm aware of this,” Malye said, watching him closely, picking her careful way through his emotional structures. He knew something, his body language screamed that he knew something she wanted to hear, but he had not yet decided what to share of it, what to withhold, what to distort. He was reading her, they were reading each other. “I'm aware of a great deal. All our functions are changing, and the adjustment has been difficult, not only for you. Why do you mention it?”
“For purposes of clarification. I will assist you not in munificence, but only because our two interests align.” His copper eyes narrowed. “Are you wholly the tool of Finders ring?”
“I am the tool of justice,” she answered without rancor, without pride or artifice. “If Finders ring opposed that imperative in any way, then no, we would not remain allied.”
“In that case,” Chain said gravely, “We possess information which you desire.”
“Really,” she said, letting no hint of eagerness show. This is all routine, boring, passe, her posture informed him. “And how do you know it will interest me? I hear a great deal.”
“You must comprehend that Talkers ring also controls the ansible array, which enables communication with the Suzerainty.”
Malye nodded. She hadn't known that, but certainly it made sense.
He went on: “Gate system has been in unceasing contact with the Suzerainty since the array first became operational, over five decades ago. Outgoing content has been trivial, and in many cases, false. Does this surprise you?”
“No, not really.” Get on with it or go away.
“You should comprehend that the Suzerainty has not been informed of the Waister presence here. Only Talkers ring has spoken in favor of their enlightenment, and in return we have received anonymous warnings in great number. Plans are deploying all around us, and none in Gate system wish humankind's ignorance to be lifted.”
Now Malye was surprised, and let it show, let it leak from her like breathing air from a sundered hull. “Why?” she demanded. “Why don't they want that? The Suzerainty is so far away, I can't—”
And then suddenly she knew.
“To the Waisters it is not far,” Chain said, confirming her blackest fears. Local gravity seemed to increase as his words settled into her. “If they can be tricked, or coerced, or subjugated, or befriended, if they can somehow be convinced to help us, Sol could be in Gatean hands within a decade, and the rest of the Suzerainty by a decade after that. Hasha would be the last to fall, would have many years of warning before we came, but they are the youngest colony, barely older than we, and they would be powerless before us.”
“Why?” Malye asked, standing again, placing her palms flat against the tabletop. “Why would you do that, attack the Suzerainty? Because it's different? Without humankind, you have no purpose, no one for whom to serve as intermediaries.”
“Talkers ring does not desire this thing,” Chain assured her.
“But the plan exists, yes?”
He spread his arms wide. “A thousand plans exist, Madam, at least as many plans as rings. Do you know so little of us? Always jostling for influence, for attention, always working at cross-purposes. Holders ring was a cat
alyst for alignment, a remover of barriers to cooperation and consensus, but they have lost stature, and Finders ring lacks experience with these matters. I can tell you that at least seven promises have been made, to destroy the ansible array if we use it to warn the Suzerainty. Truthfully, I expect someone will destroy it anyway—few will gain advantage by its existence—and while most of the strategic weaponry has been nullified, many rings posess the tactical and personal resources to overcome any defense Talkers ring is capable of erecting.”
Malye was shaking her head. “What is to be gained by attacking the Suzerainty? What threat is it to Gate?”
“Not a threat,” Chain said, “but an irritant. We Aggressors have never been welcome among humans. Lacking influence, lacking even respect, we've skulked always at the edges of their society, unable to penetrate, unable to flee. As you say, the Human Spaces are where we belong, for we bridge the gap between human and Waister minds. It is our only function, and we will not see it disregarded.”
“You will have respect from the Suzerainty, even if you must conquer it,” Malye said wonderingly.
“Talkers ring does not agree with this outlook,” he reminded her. “We are not soldiers, but facilitators of communication, and as such we occasionally overhear what we are not intended to. I warn you that the deaths you seek to avenge were engendered by these plans of conquest, though there are others who wish you to live. Some would see you as intermediaries, between Gate and the Suzerainty. Or as hostages, or puppets, or icons. It was felt that you should be warned. Though you have aggrieved us, the interests of Talkers ring are not furthered by your elimination.”
Concepts were falling together like polybricks, interlocking to form tough, durable structures. Chain believed almost everything he was telling her, which was a goodly chunk of everything he believed he knew, and suddenly a great many things flashed clear in Malye's mind. Her mood opened out, her bitterness expanding to encompass this new view of the worlds.
“Damn,” she said. “Damn me for ever waking up in this hell. Can you get a message to the Waisters? In secret, I mean? I can't believe I'm asking this, but can you send a courier, or stuff a note in a bottle and throw it at one of their ships? It's very important.”
Now it was Chain's turn to look puzzled. “In concealment? I believe that would be possible, yes, but why do you query? Would you trust us with such a task, after all that I have told you?”
“Citizen, we have no need for trust between us. Your manipulations are not so deft that I cannot see them, and I rather suspect your own information sources are tainted. Whose tool are you? But we are not so powerless, you and I. We can constrain one another, so that I further your interests even as you are furthering mine, and betrayal can only doom us both. And if some third party has been shifting us toward this, well, that doesn't mean we cannot surprise them.”
Chain looked completely aghast. “Madam, Talkers ring is not a human tool, is not anyone's tool. We felt it would go better for us if you had been warned, and this has been accomplished. Beyond that, what can you expect of us? We cannot defend you; we dare not even try. What is it you conceive?”
She stretched her back, putting her hands on it, massaging where it hurt. Four days of high gravity, with no relief. Her back got so sore just walking around, and sleeping on it only made things worse.
“There are times when an enemy's strength becomes your own,” she said quietly, “You exploit it, without interfering directly and without attracting notice. In a training exercise once, a surface navigation and survival course, I grabbed an officer's air tank and simply rode him back to the rendezvous point. In the low-gee, he never even guessed I was there, though I could have opened him up to the vacuum at any time. What we must accomplish is something very much like that.”
“What message would you wish conveyed?”
“I don't know all of it yet. I'll need some time to think it through.”
“Time,” Chain warned, “is not a thing I can guarantee.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
219::05
CONGRESS OF ADVISORS: UNIT 312293, 8654th SESSION (PARTIAL)
CONTINUITY 5218, YEAR OF THE DRAGON
“There's going to be trouble,” Malye said to the ghost of Ken Jonson. “I can smell it, I can see it coming, like a riot about to break.”
“What kind of riot?” Jonson asked her.
They were in their little conference room again inside the Congress, just the two of them. And Mediator, of course, but she'd learned how to keep him in the background, watching without jabbering and interfering every minute or two. Everything was flat and sterile around them, a world of dim colors and muted senses, a mere approximation of a world. Ialah save me, she thought suddenly, from ever becoming one of these Congressional simulacra. Soulless and yet almost alive, enslaved in this shadowy purgatory, answering questions over and over and over again like suspects whose interrogation would never end. Viktor, at least, had dwelt here willingly, and tasted reality again before he died. No such opportunity would befall Ken Jonson, who would remain here forever, with no hope of reprieve.
“Ialah,” she wanted to say to him, “what a tortured existence you lead! Would you rather I destroyed this unit, and sent you to oblivion?” But she needed him too much. Slave he might be, yes, but her slave, whose advice might save countless lives, might save all of humanity from sharing his own fate.
What she said was this: “Gate has flown to pieces, with rebellion and murder and everyone working their plans in secret. I trust none of them, and even if I did, they are as trapped in the chaos as we are. I have never seen a society in such turmoil.”
Jonson was nodding, looking thoughtful. “Yeah, the greatest danger of created entities is that they'll outlive their original purpose, and seek madly for a new one. Machine intelligence was an outlaw technology in my time, for precisely this reason. Unstable, untrustworthy, although I suppose human beings are just as susceptible to that. And we Aggressors—” he grinned humorlessly “—have always been a dangerous breed.”
“We humans are trapped,” Malye said, her simulated brain buzzing with the feeling, claustrophobic and terrifying. “We're caught in the middle of everything, with no way to escape, and no way to protect ourselves. Who can protect us? Not Finders ring, certainly; I expect they're as much a target as we are, and yet they're still so eager to please. They'd have no compunctions about turning us over, trading us like supplies, and even then they might not be safe. Names of Ialah, the only stable force in this system is the Waisters themselves.”
“And have you spoken with them?” Jonson asked.
“No. Maybe. I've initiated a communication, but... What can they do? They're monsters, aliens, they have no concern for our petty affairs. Do they? Will they intervene?”
He shrugged. “Who knows? If they have a particular interest in you, who's to say they wouldn't move to eliminate a threat? During the war, we studied them until it was coming out our ears, but they were always full of surprises.”
Malye felt herself growing angry, a strange thing for a simulacrum to do, but there it was. “It was a surprise,” she said, “when they annihilated us for no reason. I watched them hunt and destroy a hundred fleeing ships. I watched them crack an entire world. I saw my husband die, Ken Jonson, and an entire civilization along with him. Are those the surprises you mean?”
He paused, regarded her for a long moment before speaking. “A misunderstanding,” he said finally, “It's true, the Waisters' attack on humanity was a mistake of monstrous proportion. I think they realize that now. Why else would they have returned, after all this time? But their genes tell them to fight with a stranger, just as yours tell you to fight for revenge, for justice. Will you let instinct betray you, as they've done, or will you calm yourself and actually think about this for a few minutes?
“My job is to give advice, and here it is, unfiltered: put the past in the past, and make the most of the opportunities God shoves under your nose. The Waisters killed
my family, too, you know, but now they're holding out the olive branch, and if I were you, I wouldn't hesitate to accept it. Why keep them as an enemy? You said yourself, you trust them more than you trust the rings.”
“The rings did not eradicate the Sirius colony,” she said, her voice sounding petulant and defensive even to her. She realized she had her arms crossed, broadcasting her obstinacy. She uncrossed them. “The rings saved my life, in fact. How can I trust Waisters to protect—”
“I've given you the only sound advice I can think of,” Ken Jonson said, with a touch of condescension. “Either follow it, or don't.”
“Fine,” she snapped back at him, and took her thumb off the Congressional trigger.
The view changed suddenly. She was in the dayroom, in the refugees' quarters at Holders Fastness, with Sasha Petrovot staring her full in the face, his glance flicking briefly down to his palm chronometer and then back up again, as per instructions.
“Less than a second,” he said.
She nodded. “Good. Don't ever let me stay too long.”
His look turned anxious. “Did, uh, you find what you needed?”
“Oh, yes,” she said acerbically, “I got all sorts of good advice in there. We're going to war, it seems, and this time, the Waisters are on our side.”
Sasha blinked. Blinked again. “That's a joke, right?”
She took his hand, tugged and helped herself up off the couch, grunting with the effort. “It is a joke,” she told him seriously. “It's very much a joke. But it's happening anyway. Get everyone together; it's time for a meeting.”
~~~
“You desired to question me again?” Chain asked, entering the interrogation room and taking the proper seat.
“Leave us for a moment,” she said to her guards, and this time, they obeyed readily. Too readily, she thought, as though they meant to lull her, to reassure her that all was well, at least for the moment. Malye had often behaved similarly, with convicts who were soon to die but had not yet been informed of the fact.